On Monday, 19-year-old Florida State University sophomore Austin Harrouff was visiting home in Tequesta, having dinner at a sports bar with his parents. According to reports, during the meal he stormed out of the restaurant without explanation. Some time later, he confronted a married couple, Michelle Mishcon and Johns Stevens, sitting in their garage, and soon thereafter Harrouff stabbed both of them to death.
Police said that when they arrived on the scene they found Harrouff over the body of Stevens, whose face he was chewing off. As the officers approached, they heard him grunting and “making animal noises.” For those who remember the case of Randy Eugene back in 2012, this may feel like déjà vu.
For FSU students like me, this is especially spine-chilling with the start of the fall semester coming up on August 29. But Harrouff’s alleged actions were most surprising to the people that knew him well — like the fraternity brothers he was visiting home with that weekend. Many details from the case are still not clear, but investigators are doing their best to get to the bottom of it as the alleged killer remains sedated at Palm Beach County hospital. For now, here are eight things we do know about Austin Harrouff, the FSU face-eater.
1. He was a star defensive tackle at Suncoast Community High School in 2013.
According to Miami News Times, Harrouff was ranked among Newsweek's ten best defensive tackles in America at least eight times in the past decade. That's definitely an accomplishment — but not one usually associated with cannibalistic tendencies.
2. He took advanced placement (AP) classes in high school.
AP courses for early college credit are hard — Harrouff probably isn't the type to sit around and coast through school.
3. His high school teammates tagged him as having a "yes sir" or "no sir" attitude.
Josh Lonsberry, a teammate of his, said Harrouff was a “great kid” who “did a lot of good things for [the team] on the D-line.” Commenting on the recent attack, he added, “It's crazy to think that he was sober and did that. We had to beg him to be more physical on the field."
4. He is a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at FSU.
As a sophomore studying pre-exercise science, he was reportedly getting good grades and has no criminal record.
5. He gave officials a fake ID at the scene.
Police say Harrouff had a fake ID and tried to identify himself as "Austin Moore" at the scene.
6. He has no known connection to the two victims.
Michelle Mishcon, 53, and her husband John Stevens, 59, were enjoying a night in their garage when the attack took place. There is no evidence that there was a connection between the couple and Harrouff — this seems to have been completely random and unprovoked. Even worse, when the neighbor of the couple tried to intervene and call 911, Harrouff stabbed him, too.
7. Flakka, the synthetic drug, has been ruled out of the case.
At the beginning of the investigation, police thought that the synthetic drug flakka, which causes vivid hallucinations and which is known as the "zombie drug," played a huge role. However, Harrouff's body temperature was not substantially elevated at the scene of the crime, which caused the police to rule it out as the cause of his behavior. However, that does not indicate that other synthetic drugs have been ruled out completely; he is still being evaluated.
8. It took three police officers to pull him off of the husband’s body.
Police officers used a stun gun on Harrouff multiple times, and unleashed a police dog in efforts to drag him away from Stevens’ body, but in the end it took three police officers to finally detain him.
